Texas Governor Greg Abbott Among Seemingly Safe GOP Incumbents Under Attack From Right-Wing

CBS Dallas/Fort Worth

July 21, 2021

Republican U.S. Sen. James Lankford would seem to have all the conservative credentials he’d need to coast to re-election in deep-red Oklahoma.

A devout Baptist, Lankford was the director of the nation’s largest Christian youth camp for more than a decade. He speaks out regularly against abortion and what he describes as excessive government spending. And his voting record in the Senate aligned with former President Donald Trump’s position nearly 90% of the time.

But like several other seemingly safe GOP incumbents, Lankford, who didn’t even draw a primary opponent in 2016, finds himself under fierce attack by a challenger in his own party. The antagonist is a 29-year-old evangelical minister and political newcomer who managed to draw more than 2,000 people to a “Freedom Rally” headlined by Donald Trump’s former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, at which Lankford was accused of being not conservative enough.

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